HK Singapore 2011 Holiday Day 20

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The morning started off with a MRT ride to Serangoon station to NEX shopping mall. On the B2 level, there was a food court where we decided to eat. I had wonton noodles, which was good. The noodles were tasty, the char siu was tender and delicious, and the soup wasn’t the peppery MSG mess that you normally get. It tasted like it was made from ikan bilis. The wontons were pork/prawn, and were nice, but not the best I’ve had.

After perusing the shops for about an hour, we decided to stop for lunch. Whilst the others were on the top floor at another food court, I went back to the B2 level to get some McDonalds instead.

I went back to the top floor with my McSpicy meal. Surprisingly the fries were still good (Aussie fries are always horrible) and the burger had just enough bite to be enjoyed without being too hot.

After an hour at the pinny arcade (and an unsuccessful attempt at a skilltester), we decided to stop at Swensens for some sweets.

I had the chocolate brownie dessert, which was served with vanilla icecream, cream, a cherry and nuts. The brownie was good, although I like my brownies with a little crust. Probably a little too sweet for my liking too. Service wasn’t the best in speed.

After NEX, we headed to Marina Bay Esplanade and walked around for awhile, before retiring back to Toa Payoh at Crystal Jade Kitchen for dinner. We ordered:

Peking Duck. Duck skin served alongside pancakes, hoisin sauce, spring onions and cucumber.

Roast pork (siew yuk). The pork was quite salty, but the crackling was nice and crunchy.

Steamed fish. This fish was cooked perfectly and steamed until just cooked. Flakey white flesh served with a soy sauce broth was just perfection.

The duck meat was braised with eggplant. The duck was a little dry in some pieces but mostly this went pretty well.

Beans fried with belecan and pork mince. Tasty and tender beans like last time, although with less wok hei.

Beancurd and vegetable dish. This was served with some saucy goop. Tasted alright but I’m not a big tofu fan.

Washed down with chinese tea, dinner was a tasty affair. Thoroughly enjoyed.

HK Singapore 2011 Holiday Day 19

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The day started off with a hot vanilla latte and a chicken and caramelized onion roll. This roll wasn’t that good, nowhere nearly as good as the pepper puff that I had the other day. The chicken used was mince instead of chopped bits of chicken. Not something I’d have again.

A group of us then headed to Woodlands and arrived to a construction yard. The first four levels were under heavy renovation and most of the shops had been vacated. Up on the top were some shops, the old Timezone arcade and the food court. After some time at the pinnies, we decided to stop for lunch where I had the soy sauce chicken and rice.

One thing I’ve noticed in Singapore is that all the chicken and duck dishes are boneless, whereas the HK equivalents have bone still in them. The Singaporean versions also serve with different chilli blends, whereas the HK versions have the spring onion oil. It was this oil that I wanted but could not get here. At $3.50 SGD, lunch was cheap and was good, but could’ve been better with said oil.

After finishing up all credit at the pinnies and taking a quick squiz at the market next door to Woodlands, we went to Ang Mo Kio. At Four Seasons Durians, I thought I’d try the durian swiss roll.

The swiss roll, as you can see from the pic, is a thin layer of vanilla sponge which encases a durian filling. Served frozen, I was told to wait 20 minutes before eating to defrost. However, after 20 minutes, things were still not defrosted. I decided to eat it still semi frozen, where it still tasted good, but probably wasn’t the best it could be.

After purchasing a couple of PS3 games, it was time to head to my Aunts place. We caught a taxi, bought a few gifts from the fruit market and headed up. After chatting and catching up for awhile, it was time for dinner.

My aunt is a great cook, and has never disappointed. On tonight's menu was chicken rice with white chicken, fish wontons, vegetable and fishball curry, an omlette and some extras. I had two servings of rice with accompaniments. Absolutely delicious.

HK Singapore 2011 Holiday Day 18

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The morning started off with a peppery chicken puff and an iced vanilla latte. The puff was quite flavourful but wasn’t warmed all the way through. It indeed was very peppery, but there’s no complaints from this pepper lover.

Afterwards, we headed to Plaza Singapura for a quick shop, where I bought some socks. We then had lunch at Carls Jr.

I went for the Guacamole Bacon Thick Burger, upgraded with chili cheese fries and a jumbo drink. The burger was quite tasty, but does not compare to the Portabello Thick Burger that I had last trip. The chili cheese fries weren’t that good. Salty, the chili had a decent cumin hit to it but wasn’t spicy. The cheese was also salty, and along with the salted fries, made for a very salty dish. Combine the two together and I couldn’t finish the meal.

After Plaza Singapura, we headed to Funan and spent a couple of hours going up and perusing the levels. I mainly stuck to the game shops and ended up buying Crysis 2 for $61.50 SGD. We then headed off to Bedok MRT station and took a bus to stop near East Coast to have dinner at East Coast Lagoon Hawker Centre where I had a share of:

Sugar cane drink. Sweet drink which cools down all the spicy food eaten.

BBBQ chicken wings. Roasted over real charcoal, these had a subtle smokey flavour.

Kai lan. Served in oyster sauce, this was quite nice. The older folk couldn’t eat this due to it still being too hard.

Fried sotong (squid). This was deep fried and sweetened with kecap manis, much alike the dim sum version we’ve had before. I don’t mind it but it’s not something I’d choose to eat.

Sambal stingray. Fleshy and more mild in chilli hotness, this version was I think nicer to eat than the Lau Pa Sat version.

An out of focus shot of cereal prawns. I much prefer the prawns to be peeled but they never are. Whilst the shell is edible, for me, they aren’t that enjoyable to eat.

Sambal clams. These were good, and I enjoyed slurping clam and sauce together. Just needed some bread to mop up the remaining sauce.

Satay chicken. I had a few of these, tender chicken as always. The peanut sauce was a little sweet for my liking so I just ate the chicken by itself.

After dinner, we headed off to Old Town which was not far away.

I went for the cendol soy drink, which I thought would be a coconutty, soy milk concoction. It wasn’t sweetened with guala malaka, nor was it coconutty. It was effectively just soy milk with ice and some green noodle thingies to resemble cendol.

HK Singapore 2011 Holiday Day 17

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Not feeling the best this morning, I thought it’d be best to stay away from the fried food and coffee for breakfast. So at Cold Storage, I bought a Red Delicious apple and some 100% OJ. After getting both down, I felt better.

After breakfast, we walked back to the hotel as one of my cousins was coming to pick us up. We got taken to a bowling alley at the SAFRA club where we had two games of bowling. We then headed towards the Orchard area where we had lunch at Crystal Jade.

I went for the hor fun noodles with seafood. This was fried dry style, much alike beef horfun in HK. This was OK, but I couldn’t taste any wok hei, maybe because of my blocked nose, or because it wasn’t there. I polished down with two teaspoons of very hot chilli oil and copious amounts of chinese tea.

After our karoke session, we had coffee at Starbucks before departing to Vivocity to meet up with two other cousins for dinner. After perusing the restaurants that were on offer, we decided to try the Peranakan restaurant (Nyonya & Baba). We shared a number of dishes (mostly spicy) including:

Fish head curry. My cousin gave me the eyeball which I decided to try. The consistency was a little weird, and not something I’d probably eat myself.

A chicken curry dish.

A vegetable dish.

Fried beancurd skin dish with a pork filling I believe.

Sambal oong choy/kang kung. This was not as good as the hawker at Lau Pa Sat but still enjoyable.

My naming of the dishes for dinner are dismal to say the least as I forgot to note the dish names on the menu. I also forgot to take a picture of the beef rendang that we also had. Overall, the food was very good, although spicy and we ordered just enough for everyone to be comfortable and have no leftovers.

After dinner we retired to “Earle Swensens” for desserts. This is an upmarket Swensens, with a better view, better table settings and a swanky harbour view with more expensive pricing. Service was a typical Swensens though and a bit lacking.

I decided to have a banana split which consisted of three scoops of icecream, toppings, whipped cream and a whole banana. I received my sundae quite early before the others and had to start eating otherwise it would’ve melted too much. I probably would not go for this again due to the amount of whipped cream that is on it.

I also had a mighty malt shake, which although nice thick and creamy, wasn’t very malty.

HK Singapore 2011 Holiday Day 16

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Breakfast was at McDonalds in Raffles City. As others were grabbing Starbucks, I went to McD’s to get a Sausage and Egg McMuffin meal with an Iced Milo for a drink. Typical McD’s fare, not much to rave about, except the sausage is chicken.

After breakfast, we headed to Orchard to do some shopping. After a quick look through Tangs, Lucky Plaza and Paragon, we stopped for lunch. We stopped for some food at the bottom of Takeshimiya, where I picked up some fried at a Korean outlet:

A potato spiral tornado thingy. This looked good but without salt or sauce, was pretty bland. It was crunchy and had the texture of potato crisps.

Fried chicken thigh. I’ve had this on previous trips to Singapore, and at $3.50 SGD, it’s good for chew on the run. It is pretty greasy though and I was getting that sickly KFC feeling towards the end.

After Orchard, some of us headed to Toa Payoh to peruse the shops there. Near the Bata store, there was a little lady selling icecream sandwiches. I went for a durian icecream sandwich, which cost me $1 SGD.

The icecream was quite nice. The durian flavour wasn’t the strongest I’ve had in an icecream but it was strong enough and the icecream was creamy enough for this to be enjoyable. The wafers which made the icecream stayed crisp throughout the eating period.

After shopping, we killed some time at my cousins place until it was time to depart for dinner. We went to Sakura International Buffet at Shaw Plaza where I had:

A slice of pizza (can’t remember the type), spring roll, Shanghai dumpling, fried chicken and two baked mussels.

Chicken rice with stirfried vegetables, sweet and sour fish and a stewed beef dish.

Steamed chicken (to compliment the chicken rice).

Spicy chicken. This wasn’t spicy at all.

Garlic bread, shark fin soup, samosa and two more fried drumsticks.

Lobster salad and lobster potato salad. This was more like mayonaise with vegies.

Black pepper lamb.

Choc mint and vanilla icecream.

Durian puff and two marble cheesecakes.

Grapes, pineapple, oranges and watermelon.

And to finish off, more savouries in the form of black pepper lamb again.

All in all, the buffet had a decent spread of good quality and was quite cheap.

HK Singapore 2011 Holiday Day 15

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The day started off with a later than normal meetup at Starbucks. As the frappas have been mediocre, I decided to grab an Iced Vanilla Latte.

For brunch, we grabbed food at Toastbox in Bugis. I had their chicken curry and rice, which was good as usual. Afterwards, we had a look at Bugis Markets, which turned out to be pretty crapola. Only a fraction of the stores were open and the ones that were had nothing good in them.

We then looked at the market on Albert St, had a gander at OG and the wholesale market. We then stopped for lunch at Bugis Junction.

I grabbed the Wagyu beef and chicken set, which consisted of rice, miso soup, wagyu beef, chicken, bean sproutes and corn. The dish was quite good, although the chicken was tastier than the beef.

After a short break at the hotel to rest, we then headed to Quality Hotel where they have a vegetarian restaurant.

The first plate consisted of fried rice with curry sauce, wontons, curry puff, various dumplings and a fried kway teow.

This was a vegetarian take on chicken rice. It was quite tasty actually, but the texture of the chicken was a little off.

Third round was more fried rice and curry, some fried egg noodles, more kway teow and a vegetable and mushroom stirfry.

Round four was a laksa with vegetarian fishball.

Sweets started with round 5 with chocolate chip and vanilla icecream.

Round 6 was coffee and durian icecream. The coffee icecream was tasty but was a little icy.

The final and savoury round were the kway teow noodles and fried rice with curry dishes. I didn’t need this round and felt uncomfortable after eating it.